2015年11月25日
「売れ残った」そして誇り高い
これはエコノミストだ。
"Leftover" and proud
Aug 1st 2014, 23:14 by A.A. | BEIJING
「売れ残った」そして誇り高い

IT ISN'T easy being young and female in China. The pressure to marry begins from your early to mid-twenties, often with your own mother ringing you on a daily basis to encourage you to settle. Education and job opportunities are rigged towards men in a broadly chauvinistic culture. Harrassment in the work place, and domestic violence at home, are rife and difficult to bring to court. The standard of beauty is narrow and exacting, often infantalising. Virginity is prized, sexual freedom stigmatised. China has taken a large step backwards from the ideal that women, in Mao’s well-worn phrase, “hold up half the sky”.
rig:その場しのぎで作る
chauvinistic:亭主関白
Harrassment:嫌がらせ
rife:はびこって
standard of beauty:美しさの標準
exacting:厳格な
infantalising:幼稚な
Virginity:処女/純潔
prized:極めて重要な
stigmatise:非難する
well-worn:使い古された
It is encouraging to see women give voice to justified complaints. Last November, 17 university students participated in a photographic protest of sexual defiance. Around the same time, Xiao Meili, a 24-year-old women’s rights activist, embarked on a 144-day, 2300km walk from Beijing to Guangzhou to raise awareness about sexual assault (in Chinese). An earlier campaign was a spin-off of the Occupy movement, “Occupy the men’s toilets”. Now, in Beijing, women’s issues have come to the stage in a dramatised collection of personal stories called “The Leftover Monologues”.
sexual defiance:性に対する果敢な抵抗
embark:着手する
sexual assault:婦女暴行
spin-off:副産物
dramatised collection:ドラマ化された収集物
The play, which opened July 26th at a cafe in central Beijing with repeat shows to follow (details available via email), was a spin on the American feminist play “The Vagina Monologues”, but with Chinese characteristics. “Leftover” is an insulting term in Chinese applied to unmarried women in their mid-twenties or older, often with a high level of education or professional accomplishment, who are cast by society (including the All China Women’s Federation, an official organ) as too picky and unappealing for their own good. (This is all nicely laid out in a new book, "Leftover Women", by Leta Hong Fincher.)
spin:視点/考え方
Vagina:膣
cast by society:世に疎まれる
organ:組織
picky:気難しい
unappealing:魅力を感じさせない
for their own good:彼らにとって
In the performance, fifteen women (and three men) took back the term for their own. Titles of the monologues, almost all of which were personal experiences delivered by non-actors, included “To be leftover is better” and “Leftover – I’m willing!”. “To be a leftover woman,” Feng Yajun, a 24-year-old sales professional said on stage, “is to be hidden in a corner... But we are already emerging from it. This transformation in China is coming to light, so I say, 'I want to be a leftover woman!'”
took back the term for their own:彼らにとってその言葉を取り戻す
水曜日。今日はこれまで。昨日はホーチミンで過ごし、夜中のフライトで今朝日本に戻った。今回はよく眠ることができなかったので、昼間は休息することにする。夜は石油会がある。ではまた明日。
"Leftover" and proud
Aug 1st 2014, 23:14 by A.A. | BEIJING
「売れ残った」そして誇り高い

IT ISN'T easy being young and female in China. The pressure to marry begins from your early to mid-twenties, often with your own mother ringing you on a daily basis to encourage you to settle. Education and job opportunities are rigged towards men in a broadly chauvinistic culture. Harrassment in the work place, and domestic violence at home, are rife and difficult to bring to court. The standard of beauty is narrow and exacting, often infantalising. Virginity is prized, sexual freedom stigmatised. China has taken a large step backwards from the ideal that women, in Mao’s well-worn phrase, “hold up half the sky”.
rig:その場しのぎで作る
chauvinistic:亭主関白
Harrassment:嫌がらせ
rife:はびこって
standard of beauty:美しさの標準
exacting:厳格な
infantalising:幼稚な
Virginity:処女/純潔
prized:極めて重要な
stigmatise:非難する
well-worn:使い古された
It is encouraging to see women give voice to justified complaints. Last November, 17 university students participated in a photographic protest of sexual defiance. Around the same time, Xiao Meili, a 24-year-old women’s rights activist, embarked on a 144-day, 2300km walk from Beijing to Guangzhou to raise awareness about sexual assault (in Chinese). An earlier campaign was a spin-off of the Occupy movement, “Occupy the men’s toilets”. Now, in Beijing, women’s issues have come to the stage in a dramatised collection of personal stories called “The Leftover Monologues”.
sexual defiance:性に対する果敢な抵抗
embark:着手する
sexual assault:婦女暴行
spin-off:副産物
dramatised collection:ドラマ化された収集物
The play, which opened July 26th at a cafe in central Beijing with repeat shows to follow (details available via email), was a spin on the American feminist play “The Vagina Monologues”, but with Chinese characteristics. “Leftover” is an insulting term in Chinese applied to unmarried women in their mid-twenties or older, often with a high level of education or professional accomplishment, who are cast by society (including the All China Women’s Federation, an official organ) as too picky and unappealing for their own good. (This is all nicely laid out in a new book, "Leftover Women", by Leta Hong Fincher.)
spin:視点/考え方
Vagina:膣
cast by society:世に疎まれる
organ:組織
picky:気難しい
unappealing:魅力を感じさせない
for their own good:彼らにとって
In the performance, fifteen women (and three men) took back the term for their own. Titles of the monologues, almost all of which were personal experiences delivered by non-actors, included “To be leftover is better” and “Leftover – I’m willing!”. “To be a leftover woman,” Feng Yajun, a 24-year-old sales professional said on stage, “is to be hidden in a corner... But we are already emerging from it. This transformation in China is coming to light, so I say, 'I want to be a leftover woman!'”
took back the term for their own:彼らにとってその言葉を取り戻す
水曜日。今日はこれまで。昨日はホーチミンで過ごし、夜中のフライトで今朝日本に戻った。今回はよく眠ることができなかったので、昼間は休息することにする。夜は石油会がある。ではまた明日。